A Herbal Remedy [Closed] [Finshed]

The group finally moved on, covering a decent amount of ground in a short amount of time. As they travelled, the ground beneath their hooves slowly changed from dry and dusty wasteland into increasingly damp and boggy terrain. This changed further into snaking islands of land set amongst shallow pools of water that clicked alarmingly whenever a pony held a pipbuck close to them.

After treading carefully and reaching deeper into the swamp, they came to a junction. Two paths became clear before them, and each seemed equally likely to take them towards their goal.

One path looked heavily overgrown with dense shrubs and low hanging trees, the perfect habitat for radigators to lurk and ambush from. On the other hoof, the ground looked secure and comfortable for walking on so they wouldn't need to concern themselves with radiation exposure.

The other path looked less secure underhoof, and would require a bit of flexible jumping and teamwork to overcome, lest a pony accumulate an unhealthy amount of radiation exposure. However, there were no good hiding spots for radigators to hide, so the liklihood of being attacked was significantly lower.

The party would have to come to a decision regarding which path they would take.

The land changed as they all got to someplace Sky had never seen,trees, actual trees around. Sky had hovered above the group, not to get any radioation like the rest of thw group. They stopped at a fork in the road with paths, one looked safe and open, but the rest might get easy rad poisoning because of it. The other path looked to be dense, but the ground was stable and rad poison to come out of there.

"So, anypony know which path we should take?"sky asked the group, to get a response.

Scrap moved quietly with the rest of the group untill they stopped at the fork in the trail. Looking over the two possible ways the group could go; he weighed the positives and negatives of both sides before coming to a decision.

"If we have Rad-away, I think we should take the path without all the hiding spots for things to jump out at us, mainly because I imagine its probably easier to use Rad-away on anybody that falls in then having to fix up wounds from whatever is lurking in those bushes."

Lightning followed the group from the air and eventually, on the ground as there were actually trees and shrubs preventing him from flying. He didn't want to fly over them as he might lose sight from the group so he decided it was better to just walk. As they came up to the two paths, one having possible hiding places for dangerous animals and the other risking radiation poisoning. As they began to discuss about it, Lightning took a chance to pause and collect his thoughts.

Looking to Cross, he would say, "Scrap does have a good idea. But do we have any Rad-Away with us right now? If we do, I'm more than happy to take the path with the least hiding places. If not, then...I think we might have to risk the other route. What do you think, Cross?"

Winter didn't like either of the options but as it seemed they had to make a choice she decided to add her own input into the mix of opinions, especially after what she overheard Flash saying. "Well I have some Radaway but only enough to cure two or maybe three ponies" she said, facing Flash. The problem would be having to decide which pony got the Radaway if more then two of them became irradiated. However it would still probably be safer then getting ambushed by Radigators.

Atriark didn't like the sound of his pipbuck ticking away like a mad pony. The tick tick tick tick tick was quite nerve wrecking.

The zebra listened from the tail end of the group. Now that the drab earth pony had left, Atriark had opted to bring up the rear. As he listened, he couldn't help shake the feeling that the seemingly easier route may be a death trap. The zebra didn't like either options, but he didn't like radigator teeth more.

Atriark stepped forward, "How do you all feel about radigator's chomping on you? I know I don't like prospect of becoming snack food. Each options sucks in their own way. I, though, would much rather take irradiated water over gators. I have," the stable zebra rummaged through his saddle bags. "enough rad-x for..." Atriark took a quick head count. "All but two of us. That'll help, but with how this water makes my pipbuck click away, it wouldn't help for prolonged exposure."

Cross stood for a moment contemplating the two options, but only for a moment....He brought up his hoof and tapped his chin.

"We have enough BUT for two of us.....and two of us....can fly...." Cross tapped his chin sarcastically, mimicing deep thought.....

"Alright well since we don't want to touch the icky water, y'all line up now and I'll launch you over the swamp....OR.....bare with me, we have Dash and Sky fly over while we navigate and use the radaway to take care of the radiation, while I teleport one or two of you at a time as far as I can so we minimize exposure?" Cross feigned disbelief but was already about to break out laughing by this point since the solution was pretty obvious even without him. Though he couldn't help himself without chuckling.

"Alright.....now lets get to work...and better yet, between Sky and Flash, I'm sure you two could carry a pony each, so you two can take Winter and Ark and get them across" Cross nodded towards the others, and avoided Sky and Winter's eyes, save himself some embarrassment, both pegasi already knew....what would stop Ark from finding out? he had no choice nonethless any other option wouldn't make sense

"Ahh, my loyal Scrap, you and I will be teleporting through this treacherous terrain together, won't that just be fun?" Cross chuckled as he put one hoof on Scrap's shoulder and the other aimed towards the direction he chose.

(OOC go ahead and proceed Zestari)

Standing at the junction, Cross proposed a third option for overcoming the swamps dangers and after presenting it, the group readily agreed to the plan to get across the swamp, and closer to the Waxing Crescent they were after.

Between the two pegasi, Sky decided to carry Winter, who was larger and heavier than the slightly framed Atriark as she was the better flyer, leaving Lightning to carry the zebra. Both being very capable flyers, neither was concerned with the enormity of the task of carrying the pair of terrestrial passengers across the swamp, and whilst progress would be slow, they would be able to ferry their less than comfortable passengers the full distance over the swamp.

Meanwhile, Cross began teleporting himself and Scrap across the swamp, from what appeared to Cross as island to island, trying to avoid possible hiding places for radigators. A few of the islands he selected and tried to land on were marshy, and the dank radioactive water that dampened and worked its way up the pairs hooves and lower legs was slightly disconcerting, But Cross refused to stop and let Scrap remove the source of radiation.

Reaching their destination on the far side of the swamp, and back on firmer ground, the ponies regrouped. Lightning and Sky were tired and had built up a sheen of sweat from their lengthy transportation. Cross was panting from magical exertion, his horn aching. On the other hand, the other three, Winter, Atriark and Scrap looked to be quite pleased, probably because they now were back in familiar territory instead of being held aloft over deadly pools of water and even deadlier radigators, or teleported haphazardly across the swamp.

A quick glance at their pipbucks showed that they were only a few minutes short canter over a nearby rise from the location Zestari had given them to find the plant and they set off after a brief recovery.

The group triumphantly crested the rise and before them, and as they began to walk down the rise towards the plants they all felt a distinctive tremor in the ground which faded after a moment. They shared confused glances, before spotting them; a few scattered groups of shrubs heavily laden with purple sickle shaped pods.

They'd found the Waxing Crescent.

The teleportation still messed with Scrap's head, he'd probably never get used to that, still he was safely across and only slightly irradiated. After thanking Cross he checked his pipbuck, noting that they were only a few minutes away from there goal.

When they got moving again Scrap fell to near the back of the group, until the tremor distracted him from their prize.

"Not to take away from the fact we've found the plant but shouldn't we be concerned about the tremor? Something hasn't gone wrong for a while, so I imagine this will...."

Lightning let out both a sigh and a light chuckle as he heard that he was going to fly Atriark over the paths and over to safety. Making sure the zebra was safety on his back, the pegasus would say to him, "Hang on. We're going up now." Unfolding his wings from his body, he would begin to flap, immediately feeling the weight of the zebra fighting against him. After a few flaps doing nothing but stirring up dust, Lightning eventually lifted off, ascending alot slower than usual.

But Lightning was confident that he could get Atriark across in decent time. And at least he didn't have to touch the radwater. Or get attacked by some animal. Once he reached a good altitude that wasn't too high or it might have freaked out the zebra on his back, he began to fly across. Sweat slowly rolled down his face as he said to his passenger, "You know...I think you are the first zebra to ever fly." The trip over took a little longer than expected but he reached it nonetheless. Sky and Cross arrived almost directly behind him and Lightning felt exhausted from the flight. But at least they were close.

Dropping back in line to continue the trip, Lightning took a chance to check his Pipbuck and realize that they were so close. A sudden tremor caught his attention and immediately made the pegasus suspicious of the area. "...Something is wrong here. Let's just get the plant and get out of here."

Cross felt the ground rumble beneath him, he looked at the others around him before choosing to comment.

"I agree with Flash...Ark You're a zebra, go ahead and pick the plant and lets roll out before Scrap gets eaten." Cross chuckled, to some degree it was always a bit mean, but he couldn't help it if he was desperate to amuse himself with Scrap's anxiety, it was funny. Whatever the buck it wasn't couldn't POSSIBLY be that bad...Still Scrap was out of leaves, and it'd be best to just get it over with so they could get back to Stableton, Cross remembered Winter mentioning something about a 'tea party' so they had to be getting back soon.

Sky had been exhausted carrying winter on her back, She never had done that before. They finally made it to the clearing with the others, There was something about this clearing that seemed wrong.

'somethings wrong, just out in the open to be taken, This cant be good.'

Sky just checked the surrounding area, to make sure somepony or something doesnt ambush them.

Winter Bell thanks Sky after she took her over the dangers bellow. She was on the verge of panic as she was carried over but knew if she panicked then she would be harder to carry. So she kept quiet. The rumble she felt put her off allot and unnerved her but none of the other ponies seemed to be too bothered by it so she cast the worry aside for now. She remained quiet as every pony discussed how to proceed before it was decided that Ark should take the flower, which she had no problem with.

"Thank you and please do not take any offense when I say; I do not want to fly again," Atriark said, panting. The whole flight he had an acute fear of slipping from the pegasus's grip.

He was about to say how terrified he was when he, and everypony else, felt a tremor. He looked around, not sure what he was looking for. All there was was the plant, sitting alone, waiting to be picked, and that scared him. Even more then the prospect of falling did.

The sound of his name being said drew him out of whatever trance he was in. "Huh? Oh me, go get the plant." He glanced at the plant and swallowed hard. "Um, alright"

Making sure his EFS was active, the Stable 113 zebra began taking a few hesitant steps towards the plant. Atriark didn't just rely on his Eyes Foward Sparkle, he also passivly looked left to right, scanning for threats. After a few steps, his pace quickened, not wanting to be in the open alone. He reached the plant without incident and began picking the necessary components.

Atriark stepped cautiously towards the plant at first, and the swamp was quiet. It wasn't until he began to dash towards the plant, that just for a second his EFS flashed a red bar and he felt and heard a rumbling from underneath him.
He only just managed to scoot past as there seemed an eruption of soil and mud that rained down upon him, some even spattering the group. Once the soil had returned to the ground, there stood a massive armoured radscorpion. Larger than anything anyone in the group had ever seen. This thing probably fed on radigators and clicked its vicious pincers and waved it’s tail menacingly. With a loud chittering, it moved to attack!

---

Team boss bait:

Name:	HP:	DT	Cond:
Atriark	225	18
Cross	210	24
Flash	240	11
Scrap	205	25
Sky	230	16
Winter	215	6

The Boss:

Name:	Health:	Cond:
'Clamps' the Giant Radscorpion	Healthy

---

---OOC GW battle stuff---

I'm running this differently to the last fight. I will keep the maths off the thread and provide a link to a spreadsheet where I'll place all that. Instead we'll stick to the descriptive and awesome part of the fight here.

A couple of new rules and stuff for this fight. (It's a boss, what did you expect?!)

You make 3 actions per post. That can be three attacks, or two attacks and a medicine roll, or an attack and 2 spells. For example.


Introducing: Conditions!

Grabbing!

Clamps can grab you this is a condition

What does that mean?:

If Clamps succeeds a roll and grabs you:

• You can't move
  
• Clamps automatically hits the grabbed player with a melee attack on its first attack (Squeezing)
  
• Clamps can still make melee attacks on others using you as a hammer.
  
• Clamps gets +10 on all attacks versus someone it's grabbing

To escape:

Make a roll: If you roll higher than 50 you escape.
Otherwise be creative, use magic to pry the claws apart or shoot his joints with your gun to cause him to let the player go.

Poison!

If you are hit by Clamps stinger, you are Poisoned. This is a condition

The effects of this are hidden, but its effects build over time if it isn't addressed by a medicine check.

1 successful medicine check will halt the progress of the poison, 2 successful checks remove the poison. I realise that we don't have anti-venom. For this fight, just use medicine to deal with the poison.

Good luck against Clamps, a true monster in the wastelands.

---OOC GW battle stuff---

Make your actions below, ponies, and remember: Three actions, so if you make three attacks, roll three times! Use the same dice tool as the previous battle.

Spreadsheet

Atriark was pelted with dirt and other debri as the biggest radscorpion the stable zebra had seen in his life emerged from the very ground Atriark was about to step on. Atriark nearly pissed himself when the monster of a scorpion emerged. What's worse, the scorpion decided it might want some zebra.

Atriark had his ten out as soon as he realized what he was facing. His Eyes Forward Sparkle showed no other red bars and only one of the blue bars that represented his group. He prayed to whoever the old-world zebras prayed to, for strength and that his allies would be able to help him while he did something stupid.

Backpedaling, the Stable 113 zebra took aim, yelled, "Hey ugly!", (or as best he could) and fired off two shots, praying (this time) to Luna that his shots were true.

Action 1:
Backpedal.

Action 2, attack:
1d100+13
92+13 = 105

Action 3, attack:
1d100+13
43+13 = 56

"You got to be fucking kidding me!?!?!" Sky just stared at the giant Scorpion, this one seemed different than the one she faced a long time ago. This one had a different armor style than the most she had seen from the wasteland, seemed to be even thicker than the one she killed.

Without a quick thought she drew out her caravan shotgun, ready to kill the giant bug.

Action 1: fly above the creature. (do i do a dice roll for this?)

Action 2: fire shotgun at the giant bug. 5+15 = 20 [failed]

Action 3: fire shotgun at the giant bug.68+15 = 83 [passed]

Winter was stunned at the sudden arrival of the giant creature. She had never seen something so big an terrifying in her life. She wasted no time reacting as she pulled out her 9mm pistol and ran, ready to join the others in bringing it down. She just hoped no pony got seriously hurt.

Action 1:

Run to the left to separate the creatures concentration.

Action 2:

Shooting at the eyes to blind.

1d100+2
92+2 = 94


Action 3:

Shooting at the eyes to blind.

1d100+2
96+2 = 98

Lightning perked up his ears as the huge beast came out of the ground. "Well, this is just great..." he muttered to nopony in particular. The pegasus fought best from the air so he would leap into the sky, pulling out his SMG in the process. Yelling to the ponies below, he said, "Pull back and try to find cover! We'll distract him from up here!" Seeing Sky in the air with him, he knew he had to coordinate their attacks together if they want to keep the bug from attacking the flightless ponies on the ground, "Sky! Keep it distracted! We got to make sure it doesn't hurt the ponies on the ground!" Aiming at the bug, he pulled the trigger, letting his entire clip fly.

Action 1:
Fly

Action 2:
Shooting (no particular target)
100 + 15 = 115

Action 3:
Shooting (no particular target)
72 + 15 = 87

"I KNEW something was going to go wrong! I KNEW IT!" Scrap yelled when the giant, armoured radscorpion burst out of the ground. He drew his lightning pistol as he backpedaled, hoping it would leave him alone more if he backed up. He snapped off one quick shot, waited for his gun to recharge and launched off another.

Action 1
Backpedal

Action 2:
Rolling to shoot center of mass
23+13=36

Action 3
Rolling to shoot center of mass
96+13=109

Cross just looked at scorpion and went "meh...." He wasn't really fazed, he had encountered alot worse before in his time. A giant humongous Rad Scorpion wasn't going to faze him now.

Already Cross saw his companions open fire on the beast and he thought for a few seconds the best course of action.

Cross used his magic to pull the two frag grenades out of his pack and brought them up to his mouth and pulled the pins......

Action 1: Rolling 1st grenade under the Scorpion
Explosives 50:
55+10=65 [SUCCESS]

Action 2: Rolling 2nd grenade under the Scorpion
Explosives 50:
29+10=39 [FAILED]

Action 3: Use telekinesis to try to slow down the radscorpion from moving
Magic 100:
77+20=97 [SUCCESS]

The radscorpion quickly lunged towards its prey, a dashing zebra. It attacked with both pincers before stabbing at the prey with its tail, hoping to quickly disable the morsel.

Still moving rapidly, it turned and dashed towards the others it had felt moving above it when buried earlier. The radscorpion jumped towards the slow moving pegasi, Sky first, then Lightning, leaping deceptively high into the air. It used each pincer, and was trying to grab them before they could get high enough to evade its future attacks.

Once it landed it aimed two final quick tail strikes at a yellow hooded unicorn.

(Radscorpion has 9 actions. It's a boss. Deal with it.)

(Rolls will be on the spreadsheet)

The initial moments of the fight happen quickly.

Scrap and Cross are quick enough react to the monsters appearance, and Scrap lets loose a couple lightning blasts, leaving blackened bubbling marks on the scorpions carapace.

Cross rolls a couple of grenades towards the scorpion, the first one explodes almost directly under it, tearing oozing wounds into its underside the second seems to fizzle in the mud. Perhaps a bad detonator, or just a dud. His magic attack seems to make the radscorpion slow a little, much to the creature’s irritation and it chitters, however it still moves with surprising speed.

The Radscorpion, Clamps bears down quickly on Ark before he can back away and succeeds in grabbing him with one of his vicious pincers, and also manages to follow the grab up with a tail sting the vicious appendage finding a gap in the armour and flooding the zebra with venom.

Turning it leaps towards Sky but flails at empty air. It then attempts the same against Lightning. And succeeds first in battering the pegasus with the claw holding Ark, and then managing to grab the pegasus around the foreleg with its other pincer, bringing it to ground. It moves towards the Cross intending to make some tail swipes, but is unable to complete the action, due the unicorns magic.

Sky launches herself skywards and manages to get high enough that the scorpion can't reach her. She fires her weapons at it, causing a couple of punctures that leak ichor.

Winter decides to move around the creature firing towards its eyes. Her shots hit the mark, and whilst the creature appears distracted, it still seems aware of its surroundings.

Flash is grabbed but as he is dragged down by the scorpion manages to unload a hefty burst of SMG fire into it. This tears long lines of wounds into the creature.

Ark tries to back away from the radscorpion, but it is too quick for him to do much and he is grabbed and stabbed by the scorpion's tail, he still manages to squeeze of a good shot from his pistol, finding a gap in the beast's armour and dealing significant damage.

---

Team boss bait:

Name:	HP:	DT	Cond:
Atriark	189	18	Grabbed, Poisoned
Cross	210	24
Flash	172	11	Grabbed
Scrap	205	25
Sky	230	16
Winter	215	6

The Boss:

Name:	Health:	Cond:
Clamps the Giant Radscorpion	Injured	Magically slowed, Distracted

---

Spreadsheet

Next round, go!

Well...that could've gone better...I dont think I can risk shooting the claws...don't think that Ark or Lightning would enjoy a lightning blast if I missed...

Scrap, still backpedaling, seeing that the radscorpion had managed to grab hold of two of his companions while he was waiting for his gun to allow him to fire again. When it finally let him fire again he loosed of another two shots toward the giant scorpion.

Action 1
Backpedal

Action 2
Rolling to shoot Clamps 89+13=102 [HIT]

Action 3
Rolling to shoot Clamps again 95+13=108 [HIT]